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Fatal confrontation/between mentally ill man and police

ALO ALTO -- The fatal confrontation between 31-year-old William Raff and three police officers outside a downtown residential treatment center for the mentally ill on Christmas night spanned just 19 seconds from start to finish, police said in a statement Tuesday.
….snip….

The officers retreated into the street, called for emergency backup and tried to summon an additional "less-lethal tool" before opening fire on Raff, according to the statement.

"But the suspect ignored commands to drop the knife and suddenly charged them," police said in the statement. Perron added that Raff jumped around and screamed unintelligibly throughout the encounter.

“Every day that they don’t find something is good for me.“ Billie Dunn

from the link above:
Perron said he could not discuss individual training records, but noted that 90 percent of the city's officers, agents and sergeants have completed a weeklong, 40-hour crisis intervention training class. But, he added, it would not have made a difference in this particular case.

"There is a time and place where crisis-intervention training works," Perron said. "But when you have a suspect who is non-communicative, who is jumping around in the middle of the street, and who sprints while screaming and waving a knife, it's not going to make a difference."

The encounter was captured in its entirety from multiple angles on high-definition video and audio recording systems in several patrol cars, according to the statement. The footage was not released Tuesday.

"At this point," Perron said, "we're not giving it out to anyone except the District Attorney's Office."

That^^^ is exactly what I have tried to say before on other threads. I have been told exactly that by officers. The training is fine for when you are trying to communicate and negotiate something. But sometimes it goes sideways, off the rails, and it goes out the door.

“Every day that they don’t find something is good for me.“ Billie Dunn

Seriously? I guess descriptions are only allowed when it suits a specific agenda. Hardly a surprise.

No one has anything against the description of the man killed here. They have a problem with that description being used to bait people from a previous thread and discussion. One that has obviously been shut down.

This thread may have gotten more attention if it was created to actually discuss this mans death, but I think it's pretty clear that it wasn't.

Okay. So there were three officers, standing back away, waiting for back up, to bring some non-lethal devices. And they are trying deescalation tactics by stepping away.

Then the victim comes charging at them, with knife in hand, screaming and threatening, only a few feet away at the end.

What is your suggestion for how they were supposed to detain him? Was one of them supposed to get into hand to hand combat with a crazed man charging at them with a knife?

If every day citizens can band together to disarm individuals, then why can't LE? Isn't that what they are trained to do? You're telling me that not even one of those officers were trained to... I don't know... Shoot him in the hand holding the weapon? Or maybe the leg to stop him from charging? And don't you question WHY these officers didn't have the proper non-lethal weapons in the first place?

I know bouncers who are trained better than LE. Never once having to shoot any one, even though on multiple occasions they had every right to.

Again, my stance is that we really need to reevaluate the way LE is trained. Someone is doing a horrible job. I bet half of these officers shouldn't even be in uniform in the first place.

This thread is closed. I'm going to leave it in the forum as an example of a thread which started with a valid premise, and quickly went south. Pay attention to the posts intended to incite conflict. More often than not, it is these "spoon posts" which stir up *stuff*, that cause threads to be shut down.